State of 3d Graphics on Wireless Devices

An anonymous reader writes "This Computer Graphics World Magazine article discusses the current and future state of 3d graphics on wireless platforms. Apparently Japan is ahead of the game with a relatively standardized 3d render engine. Seems like the main use is for 3d virtual pets and the standard sort of games one might expect. What I'm waiting for is what I believe to be the next step; the one described in, oh, so many sci-fi novels... a personality for my handheld! Imagine, if you will, a personalized avatar or something that can interact with you and perhaps assist you in your daily endevours (with a touch of attitude?).."

Comments

Re:3d graphics?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

This are two complete different areas. There is nothing wrong with phone, the problem is the service providers who doesn't want to spend enough money for building good networks.

3D graphics on your cell phone has nothing to do with service providers.

Re:OpenGL is fine

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why OpenGL ES is being developed. Go to www.khronos.org

Mobile 3D standards

[Jouni]

For what it's worth, there are some real standards being worked on for mobile 3D graphics. Even HI Corp who the article mentions are contributing, but everyone is welcome to participate in community review.

The two main standards currently under development are OpenGL ES by the Khronos group and the JSR-184 headed by Nokia. If you read through the list of participating companies, you'll notice a good bit of overlap; we can expect the two APIs to play quite nicely together.

Mobile 3D hardware will also be coming probably sooner than what most people think. Some Ericsson researchers will be giving a SIGGRAPH talk on the subject ("Graphics for the Masses: A Hardware Rasterization Architecture for Mobile Phones") even if nothing more than the title is known at this time.

While all mobile devices will have to make their own compromises on functionality, battery life, weight and cost, almost all of them are capable of running 3D graphics when the software is carefully constructed. Many modern software rendering techniques are based on dynamically generated/compiled code, and the processes are very similar to what happens inside 3D hardware. As these libraries will also be fairly small, they will not add cost or weight to the devices themselves. 3D chips will be reserved to those more keen on playing games on the road.

The technology is definitely coming, now all we need to do is invent the killer application. Ideas anyone?

Jouni

Re:I'll sit this one out...

[unixbob]

There's 3 aspects to this though. You can already get Doom for the Nokia 7650, and Quake for the iPaq. So 3D gaming for portables is already here. I've also heard a lot of games developers saying that they are looking at bluetooth to do multiplayer games on mobiles.

As far as wireless broadband goes, (and this is probably massive flamebait), but it does amuse me how far behind the US is compared to the rest of the world on this. Already in the UK, GPRS is enabling up to 33,6k (or even maybe 56k, I'm not totally sure) for mobile phones. Which may not sound a lot, but in my experience 56k is plenty enough bandwidth for web browsing. And on the form factor of a mobile phone it's probably enough for streaming video.

The only technology that is currently not available is the AI Avatar. To be honest I agree with the rest of the posts on here, after initial amusement that would just get plan irritating.

I personally think that the best mobile technology to come out recently (after bluetooth) is the video phones that have just come on sale. Right now though it seems that no single device has the 3d gaming ability, bluetooth, videophone, PDA abilities. Lots of devices have some of these (plus some other useless crap) but nothing seems to completely fit the bill. Which is pretty cool because manufacturers are trying out lots of new ideas. I think in twelve months we are going to have an absolutely rocking mobile platform as the gimmicks fall by the wayside and the good ideas converge into the mainstream. Well, in the UK anyway. :)